The Emptiest Place on Earth
We won’t say that we saw this coming, but we definitely saw this one coming. Disney reopened it’s parks across the state of California, some concerns were raised immediately, but many held their breath. As Disney World reopened sections of the park, Disney started seeing some much needed capital come back to the park.
Not that Disney absolutely needs the money, but they’ve been losing billions of dollars since the COVID pandemic shut down parks. Not even mentioning how many big movies that they’ve had to take out of theater circulation. Even going so far as to move some of their movies back by years, while canceling the premieres of others.
Disney World is running a special where your ticket automatically gets you a Fast Pass to COVID.
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) July 21, 2020
Overall, just not really a good time for Disney Theme Parks as a whole. And now, it looks like Disney is starting to see issues with keeping their parks open.
A representative of Disney came forward to announce that the park would be instituting a number of delays to previously planned reopenings. Mainly mentioning places like the Disney hotels and resorts that had originally planned to open in August.
Disney is just not seeing the financial capital that they need
Due to a resurgence in cases around the US, Disney is now reconsidering the risk factor of reopening these locations. Cancelling the reopening of locations like: Polynesian Village, Art of Animation, Disney’s Beach Resort, Boardwalk Inn to name a few.
Guests who had made reservations for these hotels at the original opening dates can modify their reservations without fees. So you can either move your reservation further back, or transfer your existing reservation to a hotel that is reopening at that time. No details on refunds were issued at the time of writing this article.
Considering that capacity at Disney World was not increased, nor planned to be anytime soon, odds are that this isn’t COVID tied. At least not in the sense of risking infection via Hotels. More likely, Disney is just not seeing the financial capital that they need from the limited park capacity.
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Even if every guest was spending hundreds of dollars per visit, Disney would still be in the hole by several millions. Reopening hotels and having to pay even more employees without an increase in guest capacity would yield negative results. At least, at this time in the reopening schedule it would yield negative results.
Assuming that Disney World is making enough right now to break even on costs, they probably want to keep that trend going. It would make the most sense for the higher ups to cancel certain reopenings.
Downside to all of that is that it means other employees won’t be able to return to work. Something that has been quite a sore spot with employees at Disney, even prompting a response from the Disney family. So, while we understand that COVID is making everything difficult, Disney is on thin ice with a lot of people. Here’s hoping that they have something figured out.
For more updates and news on Disney World, stay tuned here at Scoophash.
